Someone must be held accountable for disgraceful NHS care

Death and suffering at Alexandra Hospital should not go un-punished.

SIR – Once again there are reports of disgraceful hospital care of the elderly in a place where they should expect to be treated with compassion (“Hospital patient starved to death”, report, December 23).

The blame lies not with the staff, but the overpaid administrators who replaced matrons. Matrons knew how to run a hospital with care and compassion, not targets and bonuses. The executives are not held to account for their failures, but allowed to resign with an inflated termination payment and be reappointed in a similar position at another health authority a few weeks later.

Our hospital system will never improve, and patients will continue to suffer, as long as these administrators are employed in lieu of matrons.

Keith Taylor Peterchurch, Herefordshire

SIR – The failings at Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, disgrace us all. But without acceptance of personal responsibility for these failures, such events will recur.

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While the NHS provides some outstanding services, especially in emergencies, the organisation appears to fail to provide even satisfactory care for some vulnerable patients spending extended spells in its hospitals.

The regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), supervises hospitals. Professionals working in the health industry are regulated by their own organisations. But there seems to be no linkage between them and the CQC. In most high-profile cases of failure, NHS institutions own up to shortcomings and make earnest statements about lessons having been learnt. But we hear nothing about incompetent medical staff being held to account for the pain they have inflicted.

Until a culture of personal accountability is embedded in the NHS, vulnerable people will remain at risk in our hospitals.

Raymond Theodoulou Quenington, Gloucestershire

SIR – The NHS scandal at Alexandra Hospital and Andrew Mitchell’s anger at his treatment (report, December 23), seem to have the same underlying cause: one which the former chief whip’s profession has been instrumental in creating. Politicians have no problem pointing the finger of blame at social workers, teachers and doctors, whether innocent or guilty, but they do not like to be on the receiving end of criticism.

While it is easy to blame front-line staff for the failings at Alexandra Hospital, what about the culture that pays chief executives exorbitant bonuses for simply doing their jobs?

When I qualified as a doctor in 1970, administrators, nursing and medical staff worked together – without bonuses – to provide the best service for patients. Starting with Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, a systemic erosion of these values gradually occurred, and they were replaced with concepts like “value for money”, a euphemism for providing care as cheaply as possible without much regard for clinical standards.

I thoroughly endorse your opinion about the need to go back to basics in the health service (leading article, December 23), but I fear it will be easier for the politicians to find scapegoats among the clinical staff.

Angus McPherson Findon, West Sussex

SIR – What we have seen at the BBC and in some hospitals is a leadership crisis (“A shameless lack of blame”, Comment, December 23). These organisations have endless management processes, policies and risk assessments, yet their leaders seem to have forgotten their primary aim. In a hospital, it should be to provide the best quality care for patients. If the chief executive of the hospital did rounds, I do not think that a lady would have been left unwashed for 11 weeks.

If truth is key to the reputation of the BBC, then George Entwistle should have had the wit to ask his management team to explain what had gone wrong at Newsnight.

Malcolm Williams Southsea, Hampshire

SIR – When my father-in-law was in hospital a number of years ago, my wife had to feed him in order to keep him alive. He went on to live an other 10 years, leading a miserable existence in a home for old people. Several patients on his ward were not fed by relatives, and we watched them die, in peace.

I wonder now if starvation played a part in their deaths. I think that they were possibly the lucky ones.

Richard Beaugie Ashford, Kent

SIR – What is being done to bring to account those responsible at Alexandra Hospital? Had just one of the victims been non-human, a cat or a dog, say, the consequences would have amounted to rather more than the payment of piffling damages to the abused and the bereaved while the identities of the guilty parties were concealed and their continued employment at our expense secured.

Keith M C Webster Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire

The Chancellor is the best man for the job

SIR – Peter Oborne does George Osborne, the Chancellor, an injustice (“IDS has to win the day in the Tory war over welfare”, December 23). Mr Osborne is clearly the best economist on either front bench and no mean parliamentary performer.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is a man of firm moral purpose, and the Government could benefit from more of his type, but the “universal credit” scheme is likely to be too complex and unwieldy, as previous ideas to combine everything together under one heading have been. It may well join the list of unsuccessful and unnecessary initiatives, along with Andrew Lansley’s health reorganisation, Michael Gove’s educational reforms, and the latest fiasco of same sex-marriage proposals. These things should be done in small steps, not as grand plans.

As for the Chancellor’s memorable phrase about one’s neighbour keeping his blinds down while sleeping off a life on benefits, I often peer through the window looking enviously at those fortunate enough to have work to go to. It is only words, and I doubt many unemployed people took offence.

Denis Garne Southend, Essex

SIR – Peter Oborne is right to insist that Iain Duncan Smith be allowed to finish his work. He received a standing ovation from the public after setting out the background and his research into the problems passed on from one generation to another, with his plans to make real changes to help people into work and transform people’s lives.

Votes will be won by the implementation of his reforms, not by resorting to the usual cynical scapegoating tactics mentioned in Mr Oborne’s article.

Rosemary Najim Epsom, Surrey

Fracking dangers

SIR – I’m afraid that even I, a Conservative town councillor, am wondering how our Government believes that it is serving the will of its electorate in giving the green light to fracking (report, December 23).

Along with its support of onshore wind farms, building on the green belt, continued EU membership, lack of meaningful immigration controls, and failure to close tax loopholes, its position on fracking demonstrates that this Government either doesn’t care or has no idea what Conservative voters actually want.

Cllr J Alan Davis (Con) Sandhurst, Berkshire

US gun control

SIR – Jenny McCartney argues that guns won’t protect us from guns (Comment, December 23). As a neutral British bystander to the Newtown massacre, I was hopeful that change would take place in America. The right to carry arms as a demonstration of “freedom” is the exact opposite.

Unless the laws change, Americans will still live under the shadow of the gun.

Roger Fry Hutton, Somerset

SIR – To amend US gun laws in response to a massacre would set an appalling precedent: that by committing an atrocity, the perpetrator has a chance to bring about change in the world and realise posthumous notoriety.

Endless media speculation, much of it devoted to the perpetrators of these crimes, fuels this possibility.

Nick More Frodsham, Cheshire

Dragon trees

SIR – The 60 species discovered in the past year are not the only ones under threat (report, December 23). The dragon trees of Socotra, known and traded for hundreds of years, are under threat, too, thanks to over-grazing by sheep and goats. The dragon tree’s red resin was used for medicinal purposes and as a dye for violins. Socotra – one of the last unspoilt islands on earth – is also home to frankincense and myrrh trees and should be protected at all costs.

Robert Webster Bicester, Oxfordshire

SIR – I was reprimanded by a Bermudian friend when I referred to palms as “trees”. Trees have concentric growth rings, whereas palms do not.

W A Tait Edinburgh

Selfridge story

SIR – While Gordon Selfridge, the founder of the department store, was born American (Letters, December 23), he did become a British citizen 10 years before his death in 1947. By then he had nothing to do with the store, though he did still regularly visit it and chat to the shop assistants, of whom one was my father.

Peter Pitt Dumfries

Ukip’s universal immigration policy

SIR – Ukip would have no intention of forcibly “returning” EU citizens who settled in Britain legally either before or after 2004 (“Could Ukip be the Tory party’s SDP?”, December 23). Once Britain leaves the EU, Ukip’s intention would be to treat the post-2004 EU immigrants in exactly the same way as we would treat immigrants from any other friendly foreign country.

As an independent nation, we would have no reason to treat immigrants from the likes of, say, France or Spain differently from those from, say, Norway, Canada or Australia.

David Watt Brentwood, Essex

The name of love

SIR – Chad Hemsley argues that the true meaning of the word “marriage” is non-negotiable (Letters, December 23), and that the gay community can surely coin a suitable word to define the status of their unions. Quite.

Chris Scott Netherne-on-the-Hill, Surrey

SIR – If the true meaning of the word “marriage” is non-negotiable, then a heterosexual couple that deliberately decides not to procreate cannot marry.

Michael Plumbe Hastings, East Sussex

Red Christmas

SIR – My poinsettia has just come into bloom for its fifth festive season (Letters, December 23). It stands in a north-facing kitchen/diner, underneath a roof dome, enjoys regular misting and the steam from cooking. It also thrives on occasional neglect.

I feared the worst this year – our dank and dark Cornish summer slowed its biological clock by two months – but a month ago the first scarlet shoots appeared.

Maureen Sleeman Penzance, Cornwall

The cat’s meow

SIR – Nigel Farndale writes that it is impossible to imagine taking a cat for a walk (Comment, December 23).

We have had two cats, Tiggerpuss and Tommers, that enjoyed walks. Tommers came only if the dog came. Tiggerpuss came regardless, and would walk any distance across fields, but if we went to the village, she stopped and waited on a wall for us to get back from the shop (or pub). Nigel and his cat should get out more.